Skorubrew #4 ( Finished )

Apr 11, 2016

🌡28° 💧°

Style

Stout

Brew Date

2016-04-11

Bottle Date

2016-04-22

Fermentation

11 Days

Bottle conditioning

898 Days

Original Gravity

1.017

Rating

6/10

#4 is once again not going to be much of a change. The main difference from #3 is going to be the addition of chocolate malt to make it more of a stout than a pale ale. Though since the rest of the beer is the same I’m not sure how much difference this will make

Ingredients

Maris otter Malt 1kg

Quick oats 100g

Chocolate malt 100g

Citra hops 7g @ flameout

Citra hops 5g dry hop

Cascade hops 5g @ 50 minutes

Safale american ale yeast (US-05)

Method

Prepare 6.5L of campden tablet treated water

Heat 4L of water to 70 degrees

Cook oats separately in the microwave so they don’t clump when added to the mash

Place malt and oats in a bag and cover for 60 minutes

Take out the malt bag and allow to drip

Pour the remaining 2L @75C of water over the closed bag

Heat mash to 100 degrees and start timer

Sanitise fermenter

After 10 minutes add 5g cascade hops

After 60 minutes remove from the heat and chill

At flameout add 7g citra hops

After chilling transfer to the carboy

Wait for fermentation

Leave in the fermenter until fermentation settles down

Once fermentation has settled down add 5g of citra to dry hop

Wait 3 days

Brewday 11-04-2016

Even before I added the oats the grain was clumping but not as bad as last time, the temperature started at 71 and only dropped to 69C so I didn’t need to worry about reheating and I kind of want this beer to be a bit dryer anyway

Original gravity came in at 1.058 (14 brix). I thought it would be a little higher due to the extra 100g of grain but that’s still an ok result

My crappy stick on thermometer is making it really hard to see the temperature. I think the yeast went in at 16C but it could be as high as 26C.

This time I only used half a packet of yeast. I hope this will make it smell less yeasty at the end and also make my yeast go further

Bottling 22-04-2016

Bubbles still seemed to be going and the FG had dropped to 1.017 but I decided to bottle anyway and just leave some extra headspace.

It definitely tastes and smells like a stout. There’s a roasted taste in there and no yeast smell. Very little hop aroma or taste which is fine for what this beer is supposed to be.

Tasting 6 /10

Has a yeasty and hoppy smell like my other beers but with a mild stout smell. The stout taste is milder than when I bottled it. To me it’s a great because it doesn’t have the kick like other stouts but this may disappoint those who look for that in a stout

Updates

12-04-2016 10:30 Fermentation seems to be going very slowly. Could be the cooler temperatures or only using half the amount of yeast. Will have to wait and see

13-04-2016 08:00 Fermentation is bubbling along quickly. Still having trouble accurately reading the temperature

18-04-2016 18:00 Fermentation has slowed considerably. Added 5g of citra as a dry hop. Has a definitely stouty flavour though I wouldn’t consider it a nice beer at this point. The refractometer reading was 1.034 (8.5 brix) which would be a current gravity of 1.019 which would be probably what I expect as a final gravity giving it a current ABV of 5.12%

21-04-2016 19:00 Pulled it out of the cupboard to start bottling and the movement seemed to start the fermentation up again. Hoping it dies down fairly quickly so I can bottle tonight